expansion & reform: the indian removal...

Expansion & Reform: The Indian Removal Act

Elliott West, The Lehrman Institute of American History, adapted by Newsela staff

In the early 19th century, European empires and the young United States jockeyed for position in the West, but true power was still in the hands of the Native people. They far outnumbered whites. They also controlled resources and routes of movement. Like the outsiders, Native Americans also fought with each other. Problems between them grew as the U.S. government forced most eastern Native groups

to relocate to the West.

On maps of the 1830s, the westernmost part of the United States was labeled “Indian Country.” The western Sioux (Lakota) secured their hold on the central and northern plains. They allied with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes to the south.

Peace between rivalsIn 1840, these three groups forged a peace with their longtime rivals on the southern plains, the Kiowas and Comanches. Together they formed a corridor from Montana deep into Mexico that was dominated by the allied tribes. Elsewhere, the Apaches increased their influence in the Southwest, the Nez Perces in the Northwest and the Blackfeet on the northern plains. The shifting currents of power sharpened conflict over land and other resources.

An increase in trade connected these independent Native people to the world outside. In exchange for goods, some groups supplied animal skins to white merchants. Other tribes provided white fur trappers with protection, horses, and wives.

Trade enhanced Native American life as tribes acquired firearms, cattle, food, knives, tools, and other luxury goods, including silverware and jewelry. Trade also had its downside, though. Much of what American Indians acquired they could not make themselves. The more they relied on such items, the more bound they became to those who provided them.

Pressured to surrender landsFor a glimpse of what lay ahead, western Indians might have looked toward the East. Tens of thousands of Native Americans in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, the Great



Lakes, and the Gulf Coast faced mounting pressures to surrender their lands. At the time, U.S. leaders were trying to create trade imbalances with the Natives. They hoped the tribes would eventually give up their lands to pay off their debts.

The most powerful force pressing against the Indians was the white settlers' search for land. Rapid population growth created a problem for

the federal government. It had agreed to treaties guaranteeing American Indians their land, but the flood of settlement seemed to demand opening up that land to white newcomers.

Thomas Jefferson’s answer was to change the Natives to fit the American language, religion, and way of life. Those who resisted or were too slow to change would surrender their lands and move west. There, the transformation would continue.

The removal of tribesIn 1828, Americans elected Andrew Jackson as president. He had become famous by fighting the Creek and Seminole Indians and had pushed hard for their removal during his rise to the White House.

In 1830, the Indian Removal Act created the Indian Territory for the displaced tribes. The area included most of present-day Oklahoma and some of present-day Nebraska.

After 1830, the removal of eastern tribes moved into full swing. Through persuasion and sometimes force, the federal government cleared the majority of Native Americans from their homelands by the mid-1840s. Some tribes moved voluntarily, but most resisted.

President Jackson’s agents enforced large-scale movements of Native Americans. When the vast majority refused to leave, the U.S. Army moved in, rounded them up, and forced them to move to the Indian Territory. Of the more than 16,000 Native Americans who traveled the “Trails of Tears,” it is estimated that 2,000 died.

As many as 100,000 American Indians were removed from east of the Mississippi. Defenders of the policy claimed eastern Native Americans were out-of-step with the white ways of life. However, many had actually become English-speaking Christians. Some practiced white methods of agriculture and even owned slaves.

Wealth and peace?



By 1845, Native Americans in the West were wealthy. Those in the East faced a government determined to rule unchallenged in the nation's best land.

The official claim was that the new “permanent Indian frontier” along the western edge of the United States would create peace. But the forces that had expelled the Native Americans in the East were already at work in the

West.

Elliott West is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Arkansas. He is the author of "The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado" (1998); "The Way to the West: Essays on the Central Plains" (1995); and "The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story" (2009).

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